Stealing Heaven’s Lightning to Break the Golden Core

Qi Xiao left the sect to break through.

* * * *

Though the events of the previous day had brought immense shock and left her feeling bewildered and at a loss, she understood one thing clearly.

Generally speaking, for any problem in the world that cannot be solved immediately, or any situation where one doesn’t know what to do, the best approach is to set it aside, not dwell on it, and focus on other matters.

After some time passes, look again, and a solution might present itself naturally.

A breakthrough in cultivation was the truly important matter.

As for the fact that the master who taught me the sword path had impure motives from the start… so what?

Her sword was her own sword.

Whether the master intended to exploit her was one matter.

Whether she would help the master was something to be decided when the time came.

Her current cultivation was a matter for the present.

Nothing could obstruct her path of cultivation.

Moreover, shifting her perspective on this might not be a bad thing at all.

* * * *

What she had been working on was actually quite simple.

As a transmigrator, she felt she had never truly leveraged the advantages of her status.

To put it plainly, while she had used her mind, far more mature than her peers, to successfully become a cultivator and then form a ninth-grade Golden Core, becoming a genius…

But!

Could this be considered having a cheat?

It didn’t seem like it!

Every single achievement was the result of her own hard work!

Why didn’t she, a proud transmigrator, have a treasure like the Mystic Maiden’s Mirror?

Shouldn’t something like that have been given to her?

In any case, no matter how she thought about it, Qi Xiao felt everything she had gained was earned through her own efforts.

But where was her advantage as a transmigrator?

She didn’t even have a cheat.

So she decided to create one for herself.

Therefore, she chose thunder magic.

The power of lightning was, of course, immense.

For a Golden Core stage cultivator, using thunder magic was already possible.

But this kind of lightning, being condensed from spiritual power, had some differences compared to natural lightning.

First, the voltage couldn’t reach that level.

Moreover, its intrinsic nature was different from natural lightning.

As for a Nascent Soul stage cultivator’s thunder magic?

A Nascent Soul cultivator’s thunder magic was basically equivalent to natural lightning.

And at even higher realms, it could surpass natural lightning.

After all, a Nascent Soul cultivator’s thunder magic might not be purely thunder magic.

But getting back to the point, natural lightning was something greatly feared by cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage in this world.

Weren’t the heavenly tribulation lightning bolts during the Tribulation Crossing stage also natural lightning?

Of course, based on Qi Xiao’s judgment, that was not the case.

Heavenly tribulation lightning seemed to have its own peculiarities, but that wasn’t important for her current purposes.

As a transmigrator, she had refined a set of special magical treasures.

Materials from her original world might not have sufficed, but the magical treasures of this world could achieve it.

Simply put, it was a treasure combining the functions of a transformer and a rectifier.

She called it the “Lightning Attraction and Spirit Conversion Pearl.”

As the name implied, it attracted lightning and converted it into spiritual energy.

What was its purpose?

Qi Xiao had previously been pondering a question: what was the essence of cultivation?

Of course, she didn’t think she could fully comprehend it; otherwise, she would have ascended to immortality on the spot.

But that said, take for example after one “swallows” a Golden Core and reaches that stage.

Progressing from the early to the mid Golden Core stage essentially involved two things.

One was the arduous process of tempering and refining spiritual power.

The other was “melting” the “Core Patterns.”

The grade of one’s Core was determined by how many patterns appeared on it during the Golden Core breakthrough.

These patterns could be of the same type or different types.

They were the manifestation of one’s Dao.

If one’s understanding of a particular Dao was profound enough, one could inscribe multiple patterns of that same Dao.

Or if one mastered multiple Daos, one could inscribe patterns of different Daos.

For instance, if one excelled in fire-element Dao arts, and only had patterns of that one type upon breakthrough, it could be a 1st-grade Fire Source Golden Core, or a 2nd-grade Fire Source Golden Core.

If one excelled in two, like water and wood element Dao arts, it could be a 2nd-grade Water-Wood Golden Core, or a 3rd-grade Water-Wood Golden Core, and so on.

However, if the Daos one mastered numbered three or more, it would be termed something like a 3rd-grade Primordial Chaos Golden Core.

Commonly in the cultivation world, it was believed that mastering too many “Daos” during the Foundation Establishment stage, to the point of forming a Primordial Chaos Golden Core upon breakthrough, was an unwise choice.

This typically signified being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.

Of course, this view wasn’t absolute.

For example, Qi Xiao suspected that when Li Wangyan eventually broke through to the Golden Core stage, it would likely be a Primordial Chaos Golden Core.

But that was getting off track.

The grade of one’s Core usually indicated one’s talent.

For instance, if one’s Golden Core was 1st to 3rd grade, it was generally believed one lacked the potential to reach the mid Golden Core stage.

Why?

Because the mid and late Golden Core stages involved the Core Patterns merging with the Golden Core itself, causing the initially not-fully-perfected Core to become utterly perfect, with the Dao fully integrated into the foundation.

From this, a Nascent Soul would be conceived, gaining insight into the truths of this world.

In other words, if one didn’t have enough Core Patterns, one’s cultivation couldn’t reach perfection.

Without employing some special methods, one would be stuck at that stage no matter how much one cultivated.

Therefore, it was commonly held that only those with 7th to 9th grade Golden Cores had the potential to break through to the Nascent Soul stage.

After all, only Cores of that grade could be cultivated to the late Golden Core stage.

Whether one could then grasp that elusive sliver of opportunity was another matter entirely.

After understanding this process, Qi Xiao began to wonder.

Merging the Core Patterns with her Golden Core wasn’t particularly difficult.

Tempering her spiritual power wasn’t particularly hard either.

But both were exercises in grinding away over time.

Were there methods to accelerate cultivation?

Of course there were.

For example, various powerful elixirs and magical treasures could shorten this process.

The Mystic Maiden’s Mirror was one example.

After entering the Mirror, her speed of tempering spiritual power had nearly doubled.

That was terrifying.

But for Qi Xiao, this wasn’t the real crux of the matter.

Even with doubled cultivation speed, tempering spiritual power and Core Patterns would still take several years.

Was there a method for rapid success?

She felt she might share some similarity with her master after all.

After all, her master also seemed intent on using a special method to rapidly achieve the Deity Transformation stage, and she was playing for much higher stakes.

Then Qi Xiao thought of the power of lightning.

In fact, natural lightning should contain traces of laws.

And this amount of law was insufficient to kill a Golden Core cultivator.

There were documented cases of Golden Core cultivators withstanding lightning strikes.

In other words, these traces of law could be harnessed by her.

She could use them to temper the Core Patterns within her body.

Furthermore, the immense spiritual energy carried by the lightning itself could catalyze a transformation in her spiritual power.

Subsequently, she could employ body refinement techniques, using the lightning to temper her physique.

First, the lightning would be adjusted in frequency, voltage, and current by the Lightning Attraction and Spirit Conversion Pearl to a level her body could withstand.

Then, leveraging the accelerated cultivation effect of the Mystic Maiden’s Mirror, she would efficiently refine this peculiar spiritual energy.

Finally, the residual lightning would be used to temper her body.

This way, she should be able to undergo a transformation under the strikes of natural lightning and advance to the mid Golden Core stage.

If this set of methods proved successful, she could recuperate for a while, make further preparations, and then elevate herself to the late Golden Core stage, awaiting only that sliver of opportunity for a breakthrough.

It would be like boarding an express train for cultivation.

While it carried some risk, it was completely worth it.

Besides, she had prepared several defensive treasures.

If things truly went south, she could abandon the attempt appropriately.

On another note—what if the breakthrough failed and her cultivation was ruined by the lightning?

Wasn’t there still Junior Brother?

He had proven that re-cultivation was possible.

He couldn’t just leave me to my fate, could he?

Thinking this way, Qi Xiao finally made her current decision.

*  *  *  *

She rode her flying sword to a rather remote location.

Of course, she was also guarding against a sudden attack by the demonic sect.

After all, she couldn’t guarantee she would survive a direct hit from a Soul-Extinguishing Nail.

Finding a place with natural lightning was actually quite easy.

Her grasp of thunder magic gave her some sensitivity to it; she just needed to follow the feeling.

Soon, she landed on a mountain peak.

Looking up at the sky, dark clouds gathered densely.

She could already sense the vast power of lightning brewing within those massive clouds.

Then raindrops began to fall.

They soaked her clothes, outlining the alluring curves of the young woman’s figure, though there was no one here to appreciate the view.

She summoned the Lightning Attraction and Spirit Conversion Pearl.

She knew the most critical moment was about to arrive.

Her hands continuously shifted forms, forming seals.

The pearl suddenly began to emit a glow.

“Lightning, come!”

The lightning already gathering and brewing in the clouds, attracted by the pearl, struck it in the blink of an eye.

Within the pearl, the current and voltage underwent transformation before being channeled into Qi Xiao’s body.

“!”

In that instant, Qi Xiao’s jet-black hair stood on end.

Her entire body convulsed in agony.

But—she wasn’t dead.

Her Golden Core hadn’t shattered either.

Surging spiritual energy, carrying fragmented traces of lightning laws, flowed through her body, being refined by her.

The patterns on her Golden Core began to flow like liquid, dripping onto the Core itself and being absorbed by it.

The Golden Core appeared increasingly smooth and perfect.

She knew she was right.

She was confident her understanding of her own Dao was sufficient.

She was confident she merely needed to skip these grinding steps, and that wasn’t a problem.

“Lightning, come!”

At first, it was just one bolt of lightning.

Then two, three.

Finally, dense, continuous bolts of lightning rained down from the sky, one after another.

Qi Xiao almost seemed to be draining the electrical charge from the dark clouds above!

To the point where the clouds could no longer gather!

She could hardly contain all the lightning power.

Excess bolts continually erupted from her body, striking other parts of the mountain peak and causing destruction.

After the final bolt descended, Qi Xiao slowly floated into mid-air.

She was wearing that set of the Plain Radiance and Flowing Light Dress.

It was as if she had undergone an unprecedented transformation.

Flickers of lightning surrounded her, adding a touch of majesty to her already saintly appearance.

‘Thirty years of bitter cultivation on the path,
Today heaven’s lightning answers my call.
Now breaking through the heavy fog at last,
From this day forth, heaven and earth seem small!’

At this moment!

The aura of the mid Golden Core stage radiated from her without restraint!

She felt everything was within her control!

She had grasped a shortcut to cultivation!

Soon, she would use this method to break through to the late Golden Core stage as well, pressing straight towards the Nascent Soul realm!